While I certainly don’t think of this as being anywhere equal or even close to a Vermeer painting, to me it has a little bit of that feel – soft light describing people working at gentle activity.

Thinking of which, if you haven’t seen the movie, Tim’s Vermeer, you really ought to. It’s a documentary about this inventor named Tim who got this wild idea about how Vermeer painted his paintings. Tim was a visionary in his own right, having pioneered digital video editing back in the early 1990s and received an Emmy award for technical achievement. Having been relatively successful in his career, he was free to go Ahab on his obsession with the idea that Vermeer used some kind of optical device to assist him in painting. Tim, unlike captain Ahab, was able to run his idea to the ground and survive the encounter unscathed. While nobody can say conclusively that Tim was right and Vermeer DID use an optical device, his documentary film and the end result are an incredibly compelling argument in favor.